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BROWN AS ITS NEW BRAND AMBASSADOR
Pivothead South Africa has appointed Smile 90.4FM radio presenter Bobby Brown as its new brand ambassador. Available in South Africa for the first time, Pivothead puts the camera where your eyes are, letting you capture hands-free video and still images from your own point-of-view.
Known for his much acclaimed Tech Report on radio, Brown is a self-confessed geek. “I’m delighted to be appointed as brand ambassador. I love all tech, especially innovations. Pivothead is the perfect amalgamation of new tech, innovated into a brilliant new application. It’s one of those gadgets that make you wonder why nobody has thought of this before. So to join the group was a bit of a no-brainer”
His current profile is very much about Science, Technology, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics (S.T.E.M.). “I’m about to launch a YouTube channel that goes back to my journalism roots of engaging human interest stories. My Pivothead glasses are going to come in very handy in this regard.”As a brand ambassador for Pivothead South Africa, Brown would like to expose new technology to people and let them see its potential. “A gadget is just a gadget until you find a unique application for it. Anyone can slap on a pair of Pivothead glasses and press record. But how can it be used in novel new ways to bring engaging content to people? Ultimately it’s a tool with which to create and I’m hoping to create great content with it.”
Brown believes that Pivothead is the perfect tech accessory. “It integrates into your life seamlessly. It’s not such a new invention that you have to find a way to use it and have it with you. It’s a pair of sunglasses and everybody knows how to manage their sunglasses – in its case, in the cubby or on top of your head. Pivothead takes what has been normal for years and super charges it with technology. So it’s a practical accessory that allows you to capture the moment without interrupting it by reaching for your phone, unlocking it and then shooting. Pivothead is always ready to shoot. I like tech that makes people’s lives easier or better, so I gravitate towards those. Ultimately, I believe that is where technology is going to find its true calling – making people’s lives easier.”
Born in Athlone in 1971 and raised in Manenberg and Bonteheuwel area, Brown’s schooling took place in the Bo-Kaap and at St Columba’s Boys High in Athlone. “I was very much a child of the city, constantly on the go, exploring new places and travelling to locations that I had read about. I would spend nights wandering the city streets with new friends and weekends on the trains going as far as the tracks would take me. Much of my youth was spent on unknown beaches, or exploring new hiking trails on Table Mountain.”
He became a radio presenter by accident – his true vocation is in fact as author and journalist. “Life has taken me on a bit of a detour. My media life started out as a print journalist with the Sunday Times, and then on to the Saturday Star and a few others in between. I still hang onto this by writing a weekly page in the Daily Voice. After print, I ended up in television for a while, including at M-Net. I was one of the anchors on the previous SABC2 breakfast show, Am2day – still considered one of the best live shows on television to date. From there radio kind of happened. I started co-hosting SAFM’s weekend breakfast show, and then worked at 702 in Johannesburg. I returned to the Mother City and worked at Goodhope FM, Cape Talk, Kfm and now Smile 90.4FM.”
Brown enjoys what he does: “Over the years, I’ve had many wonderful experiences as a media practitioner, and particularly in radio. I’ve travelled and met amazing people and decision-makers. These include the likes of Nelson Mandela, Bono, Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Richard Branson and many more. But it’s often the ordinary people who work tirelessly in their communities that are most memorable.”
Brown writes extensively for various publications, including corporate, and has lived many of his dreams. “I’m also an event’s organiser, dealing with major public events strategy. One of the things I’m most proud of is having been part of the team that turned around the annual Mayor’s Festive Lights Switch-on Carnival into the mega event that it is today. I was also the consultant that managed Cape Town’s 2010 FIFA Fan Walk, making it into a celebrated project admired by the world.”
On what motivates him, Brown comments: “I’m motivated by life itself. I’m very competitive and like to achieve things that people deem impossible. I compete against my own success and take inspiration from life. But I’m also aware of how my own success can inspire others, including my own kids. And that in itself inspires and motivates me. But the truth is, I am easily bored. Once I have done something, I am loathe to go back and do it again. I have to feel challenged. And I have to feel like I’m learning something new with every new (ad)venture.”
Brown has many more goals that he would like to achieve and he has started this year with learning a new video-editing programme. He says: “I’m a firm believer in self-improvement and consider myself to be a perpetual student of life. In 2016, I hope to have my YouTube channel up and running successfully, to have helped to make Smile 90.4fm into the biggest radio station in Cape Town where we regularly do amazing and memorable things that matter. I want to help inspire people to be the best versions of themselves. I also hope to have finished writing my first book and visit one of the many places on my bucket list; maybe Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Petra in Jordan or the Plitvice Falls in Croatia,” Brown concludes.
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